Last Friday, a video shot on the street below the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York captured the sound of hundreds of detainees banging on the windows. Later that day, the New York Times reported that the more than 1,600 people incarcerated inside were being held in freezing cold temperatures and dark cells. The jail, the Times reported, “has had limited power and heat for at least this week.” “They just stay huddled up in the bed,” a case manager at the jail said of the detainees, the vast majority of whom are awaiting trial and thus still considered innocent.

Both the article and the video quickly shot around social media. Over the next two days, hundreds of protesters flooded the parking lots surrounding the building. Responding to calls for action on social media, I joined the demonstrations on Sunday afternoon. Only an hour before I arrived, protesters had attempted to enter the building, only to be driven back by pepper spray.

The protest was free form, following the lead of various voices. We heard mothers implore the crowd and the officers outside to recognize the humanity of those incarcerated. We heard singers lead protest songs and marching bands blast classics loud enough for the detainees inside to pick them up. We heard elected officials relay reports of the conditions in the MDC, technical updates on the progress of the repairs, and explanations as to how this had happened in the first place. With no gavel to keep order, the officials were occasionally drowned out by family members with megaphones.